Keith Hudson's Musings

Paris Climate Summit failed before it started

The basic impossibility of the Paris Climate Summit of a week ago is that politicians want to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to continue with world economic growth while, at the same time, decreasing the intended pace of energy inputs into some developing countries with large populations such as India, China, Brazil and Indonesia endeavouring to approximate to the living standards of the Western elites..

Not only is this politically improbable but it is physically impossible. The fundamental thermodynamic principle of Least Effort means that increasing economic growth cannot be maintained without increasing use of energy. Moreover, it needs to be disproportionate, too. The higher that economic activity rises, the more that waste energy is dissipated, and thus the more energy has to be injected in the first place.